


old grip of the familiar

by beauxbatons



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Amnesiac Mollymauk Tealeaf, Angst, Bisexual Mollymauk Tealeaf, C2E26 spoilers, Mollymauk Tealeaf Lives, Mutual Pining, Nonbinary Mollymauk Tealeaf, Other, a bit of a character study if you squint, a sort of fix-it fic, but neither of them are really good at this, caleb and molly should just bone, doesn't spoil much else tho, molly's got identity issues tbh, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:48:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27600254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beauxbatons/pseuds/beauxbatons
Summary: Alone. Pain. Dirt. Claws. Suffocating. Empty.Coming back from the dead took a toll on Mollymauk Tealeaf. But slowly he learns.
Relationships: Mollymauk Tealeaf & Caleb Widogast, Mollymauk Tealeaf/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 1
Kudos: 55





	1. a ghost that the others can't see

**Author's Note:**

> warnings for this chapter: amnesia, angst, identity issues.
> 
> i don't own anything (obviously) and i'm just gently socially borrowing taliesin and liam's characters for a moment. apologies for any grammar fuckups, i don't have any extra eyes on this!
> 
> title inspired by agnes obel's "familiär".

Alone. Pain. Dirt. Claws. Suffocating. Empty.

Coming back from the dead took a toll on Mollymauk Tealeaf.

He didn’t remember the tall woman who said they used to be coworkers, before. He didn’t remember a green man who said he was his bunkmate, even if Molly hadn’t been the best bunkmate back. He didn’t remember anything— anyone. But he’d come into seven friends, even if they didn’t mean anything to him at first. They seemed to know his name, his likes and dislikes, his wants and needs, far before even he knew what anything was— forget his preferences.

But slowly he learns.

He likes his coffee with a fair bit of creamer, preferably with a little whiskey thrown in. He likes the sleeves of his shirts pliant and soft for mobility. He likes a jaunty tune by a melodic voice and dancing with a gleeful person in his arms. He likes gaudy, bright, over-the-top, pretty. Pretty girls, pretty boys, and everyone in between.

He loves good food. A hot bath. An earth-shattering orgasm. Strong liquor and hard drugs that get him floating. Anything that gets him to forget the clawing out of the dirt with his bare hands, _choking_ on it—

_Breathe in four counts, hold five counts, exhale six counts. Breathe in four counts, hold five counts, exhale six counts_ —

“Mister Mollymauk?”

He snaps up in a panic, eyes latching onto the wizard in front of him. Does he look as tense as he feels? He doesn’t know.

“Caleb,” he says jovially, tone contrasting the rigidity of his spine, the stiffening of his tail, his claws tearing through his coat, which he’ll have to hem again later. “What can I do for you?” Caleb looks uneasy, like he’d rather be burned alive than talking to someone right now— and coming from him, that’s a lot. So-called new confidence be damned, Molly guesses.

“Um— I was more thinking of how I could help _you_ , Mollymauk.”

Molly takes great action to soften his smile into something resembling neutrality. “That’s too kind of you, Caleb.” It doesn’t answer the question, but _is_ there an answer to the question? There’s nothing he— or anyone, for that matter— can do to make his memories come back. To make the bad ones go away. He’s wiped again, a clean slate, but unlike he was said to be last time, he mourns the loss of the one before him. That person seemed kind— good to his friends, even good to his enemies. He wants to be that person again, but that person had time— time to give names to everything, to learn how people worked, to discover nuance, to work through the ugly that digging yourself out of your own grave could be.

Lucien was the one who came before Molly. And this was supposedly Molly too, but in that case, Molly was Lucien, and so was he. Or was he neither, and these names were both as ill-fitting as Caleb’s old coat?

He remembers Caleb is in front of him again, and realizes that he had been spoken to.

“Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that.”

Caleb’s brow furrows in that way that he’s learned means he’s sequencing through old memories, puzzling something out. “I said that it wasn’t out of kindness. We are…friends, _ja_? And you helped me before. I am returning this favor.”

Molly doesn’t remember helping Caleb before, and Caleb’s never mentioned this, but there’s a lot of time he’s missing, so it doesn’t shake him further. “I promise I’m fine,” he assures him, running his claws through his hair. He widens his smile and narrows his eyes. “You sure this isn’t coming from somewhere else?”

“ _Nein._ You are changing the subject, however.”

Caleb is brave, Molly thinks. Nott says she’s proud of him, that there was a time before that he wasn’t always this way, but the man Molly knows now is both introspective and confrontational, knowing of when to interject and when to stay quiet. That doesn’t sound like a man who was meek and horrified by human interaction to him, but then again— he doesn’t know who he left. Only who he found.

“That’s nonsense,” Molly counters, and springs himself up to stand. His knees protest, having been sitting for so long. He could certainly elaborate on his point, but he doesn’t. There’s no point in arguing semantics with Caleb, not when he’ll certainly recall every bit of everything that’s ever happened in his presence.

Caleb almost seems to glower at him in that strange little way that he does, startlingly blue eyes narrowed and questioning, mouth set in a disapproving line. “My _god_ , are they blue—”

“ _Wut?_ ”

Molly blinks, realizing that he spoke some part of that monologue aloud. “Sorry,” he laughs. “Your eyes. They’re a bit distracting, you know.”

Caleb visibly turns in on himself, face flushing red with blood, but Molly sees a glint of hope in his horribly embarrassed eyes, and he’s not sure where it comes from. “So I have been told,” he mutters under his breath.

“Of course you have!” Molly agrees, clapping his hand on Caleb’s shoulder. “I would be surprised if you hadn’t.” Caleb doesn’t quite flinch at the contact, but he certainly tenses, as though he’s preparing for some kind of injury. But Molly wouldn’t hurt Caleb— maybe make him uncomfortable, sure, like he’s doing right now— never intentionally, anyway.

Molly takes this opportunity to get the fuck out of this conversation. Confrontational Caleb is difficult to get rid of, but embarrassed Caleb can be easily pushed out of the way. He doesn’t mean to be disparaging. It’s just easier.

“… By you,” Caleb finishes, and Molly’s almost halfway out the door when he turns one-hundred-eighty on his heel.

Caleb is looking at the ground, and maybe _that’s_ why Molly saw hope in his eyes— for a quick moment, he was like the old Molly, who cracked jokes and flattered his friends and… would have done anything to make Caleb blush.

How does he know that? It’s not like it’s a surprise, really— he likes to make everyone blush, doesn’t he? That’s part of his charm. But Caleb, specifically— no one told him that. Molly is positively sure about it. It’s just a feeling he’s got in the pit of his stomach.

“ _You’d said you found one of us attractive_ ,” Jester grinned, running through everything he’d said when she’d cast Zone of Truth. “ _Who was it_?”

“ _Oh, obviously_ you _, my dear._ ” Jester had practically gone into song and dance, and he’d known that'd had the right answer. But it wasn’t, was it?

Fjord was tough-looking yet utterly comfortable in the way that he smiled. Caduceus was soft, easygoing and relaxing. Jester was beautiful in the way that he found everyone remotely attractive beautiful. Yasha was… well, Yasha, and something about her made him incredibly uncomfortable at the thought of attraction. Almost like she was akin to a sister.

Caleb wasn’t… beautiful. Was he? His features were sharp, angular, could have been softer if he’d actually thought to take care of himself in the last decade. But when he’d had a proper bath and tied his hair back in a ribbon, dusted off his coat and gotten all the dirt off his face, he was striking. Imposing. Maybe he wasn’t beautiful at first, but at second, third, fourth? Blue eyes, light and seeking, shocking red hair and the soft scattering of gingery freckles across his light tan skin, a sharp jawline and imposing brow.

He retracted his first statement. If you cared to really look, Caleb Widogast was _definitely_ beautiful.

So, was there anything he could do, then, to take Molly’s edge off? Yes, Molly whispers in his own head. He could think of thousands of innuendo-laced ways that Caleb could certainly try.

But it was doubtful. So, so, unlikely. _Yeah, fuck me senseless, Caleb, and maybe I’ll remember the time I pushed Fjord into a well._ That sounded about as rational as Nott’s claim that she did better at disarming traps when she was drunker than the group as a whole.

And besides, he’d gotten into such a good place with the group, he’d thought. He had his moments, days like today where he felt like everything was rising in his throat and he couldn’t swallow and push it down. But he laughed at the right moments, cavorted with the right people, knew where to put his blades and what words to call when they were in crisis. He knew he put them all at ease when he acted like the person he was before. It was just… strange. Like that person was familiar and yet so foreign, on the tip of his tongue, a half-act.

Sometimes, though, when he was thrust out of his own way, he found himself nudging in that direction, though. Towards the Molly they knew— that Caleb knew— and when he wasn’t pretending, it felt even better. Like they liked him for _him_ , and not who he was pretending to be, and maybe he was actually coming back to himself this time.

Moments like these made him think. Made him feel a little more whole, if just for a second. Less empty. More solid. Like he was a person they could enjoy again, not just a husk with a familiar face and shocking battle tactics.

Molly turned to leave his room, but not before stealing a final glance at Caleb, who— to his surprise— lifted his eyes just long enough to lock with Molly’s own. Molly was lucky his eyes were fully red— you could never quite tell where he was looking unless you were practically nose-to-nose— but he somehow felt Caleb _knew_ he was looking, knew he was savoring the moment he got, the forbidden glance that _surely_ didn’t mean anything.

“ _You always said you liked your bullshit_ ,” Beau said one night, “ _And that’s why you didn’t want to know who you were before. But I figured you_ liked _this version of you, so fuck it. I think somewhere in you, you still like it._ ”

He _did_ like his bullshit. Just not this particular case of bullshit. Because unlike his usual bullshit, this was in him, was not just a silly fib that naturally fell of his tongue but a great, callous lie.

He likes beauty. Pretty girls, pretty boys, and everyone in between. Caleb was just the latest in a long line of _pretty_ , at least to him, and perhaps tomorrow it would be Cad or Jester he found attractive.

_Bullshit_ , he thinks, and before he knows it he’s downstairs, ordering an Irish coffee with double whiskey to forget the disaster that was this morning.


	2. i was built on bricks of carelessness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> nighttime revelations.

He has a nightmare that night. He’s not entirely sure what it was about, only that it’s got him awake in a cold sweat, heart thudding thunderously in his chest, and he can feel it press against the taut skin of scar tissue there. All he remembers is a glaive, carving into his skin like butter, tracing the ten red eyes scattered across his body.

_“There only used to be nine,” said Yasha. “This one,” she explained, pointing to the eye that rippled across the long, gory line carved into his chest, “this one is new.”_

Something thicker than water or sweat is pouring down his neck, warm and pooling into his shirt. As his fingers tentatively inspect it, he realizes the source is his biggest eye, the one situated right on his neck, the one that always bleeds when he slits his skin in combat.

His eyes— the actual ones this time— travel down his arms, and sure enough, one of his talons had dug into his wrists hard enough to draw blood. And rather than process the fact that he’d managed to cast a blood curse in his sleep, he decides rather suddenly that he needs a walk. Desperately.

Shoving the blankets off rather unceremoniously, he cobbles together an outfit that reveals he definitely got dressed in the dark— a light tan tunic paired with camel brown trousers and his thigh-high boots is _far_ too tame for this body— and throws a shawl over his shoulders, half for warmth and half to cover the bleeding that seriously _won’t stop_.

“…Molly?” _Well, fuck me!_ Though he hadn’t intentionally tried to be quiet, he certainly hadn’t wanted to wake up Fjord of all people.

He feigns nonchalance. “Yeah?” It doesn’t work. His voice is too shaky, too rattled fromthe carving into his skin—

“What the hell are you doing up?” Fjord rubs his eyes sluggishly as he sits up, and Molly hates that he’s not the only one around with darkvision. It’d certainly make things more convenient, that’s for damn sure.

“Couldn’t sleep,” he lies, more convincingly this time. Technically, it’s true. He doesn’t want to sleep ever again if _that’s_ what he’s going to deal with.

Fjord hums in agreement, apparently accepting this answer, and his head hits the pillow again with a hard thud. Clay seems unperturbed by this entire interaction, snoring soundly all the while, probably from growing up in a house where you hear your parents constantly doing the deed. _Not a shock that he’s a strange kind of guy._

With his roommates sufficiently out for the count, he’s finally free— liberated of everything bad and old, filled only with the good and new that comes with exploring. And Mollymauk’s learned that he loves to explore at night. When everyone’s asleep, there’s so much more to see, and the little hints of fluorescence in the darkness glow like his own eyes in night. Maybe he sees some bit of himself in it, in something that comes alive in the smallest ways when no one seems to be paying attention.

Shuffling down the stairs, Molly faces an abandoned bar, its barkeep probably head out for the night. That’s a free drink, if you’re careful to only skim a little from the top, and he’s always been dexterous with his hands like that. Taking a glass from the shelf under the bar, he pours in _just a little_ of each hard liquor that’s been left out, creating some sort of light brown concoction you definitely _shouldn’t_ drink, but he does anyway, a calming sigh running through him as the warmth courses down his throat. Pouring the rest into the flash he’s recently— _thankfully_ — acquired, Molly stands up with a flourish and heads to the door, all liquor skimming unnoticeable.

It’s at this he’s suddenly realized he doesn’t remember the tavern they’re in— he looks halfheartedly at the sign on the front, but the letters swirl and make his head hurt— so he crosses his fingers that he’ll make it back. _Roses on the doorknobs_ , he reminds himself. Landmarks were usually how he got himself around, and since Deastok wasn’t very large anyway, there probably weren’t two inns with rose-carved handles.

He meanders the streets, not finding much of note. A few shops, one in particular with an impressive jewelry display for the size of the town, and a hidden alleyway leading to a small fountain, two tiered and running even in the dead of night. The sound of his heels hitting the stones of the roads and pathways are beautiful when there’s nothing but his footsteps. Not usually one to want to be alone, he finds himself liking the solitude, feeling like he’s let go of a breath he’d been holding for too long.

Though it takes him longer than it probably should, he makes it back to the rose-knobbed doors before dawn, but the barkeeper has already risen and began preparations for the early morning risers. A half-elven woman easily thrice his age, she has soft crows feet at her slanted eyes, the fey in her appearance so present in her face. “G’morning, Xolda,” he greets her, and flashes a toothy grin.

“Well, you’re certainly up early!” she stage whispers, as if the walls were thin and she was at risk of waking patrons, but the inn is well-built and kept. It’s likely out of politeness more than anything else.

“Fancied an evening stroll,” he calls back, and he’s already up the stairs. Looking down at the oversized scarf covering his chest, he pulls back the fabric, blood causing it to stick uncomfortably to his skin. It stopped bleeding, thankfully, but he hadn’t noticed when. Blood didn’t make him nauseous or anything, not like it did the queasier folk, but the lack of control is enough to bring about some uneasiness.

Opening the door to his shared room quietly, he manages to only creak a few floorboards before sinking back into his mattress, boots and all. Though he could shove them off, he’s unsure he’ll be able to get back to sleep anyways. He wants to bathe. To get all the _red_ off, to destain his skin. That doesn’t feel quite permanent, though— perhaps another piercing, tattoo, horn alteration.

Last time he’d brought it up in the presence of the group— who had since discussed the possibility of magical tattoos— Caleb had quipped he would soon run out of skin to decorate. Aside from _Caleb_ being the one to _make a joke_ , he’d had a point, but would that necessarily be a bad thing? Anything to move on, past this weird space in the middle of nowhere that made him feel like he didn’t quite belong in the body he occupied.

Yasha said he never did, even before. That he always felt this odd sense of hollowness, that he had an ever-present desire to outrun it before it consumed him. Molly thinks he would like to be the owner, the sole proprietor of his skin and bones. How he got this way, though, with a startling inability to die, would be the first order of business. Learning that without learning about the man who died before him— flashes of cropped short hair, purple and red-eyed skin, tattered black clothes come to him and discomfort creeps in— would be difficult.

He doesn’t want to know that person. The person that pops up in his dreams, both the good ones and the nightmares. He just wants to know how to eject that person, his memories, his flashbacks. “Doubtful,” he murmurs to himself. “Not on your own, anyway.”

Eyelids coming to a close, he forces his breathing to go even. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi! sorry it took me a bit of time to post an update. it was very molly-heavy, but we'll see more interactions between caleb and molly next chapter.


End file.
